


The Eighteenth Day

by chelseagirl



Series: Jimmy Trevors [2]
Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 13:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17162474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/pseuds/chelseagirl
Summary: Sheriff Lom Trevors has been anxiously awaiting the arrival of his nephew Jimmy in Porterville, Wyoming.  He'd asked Heyes and Curry to accompany the boy, so what could possibly go wrong?





	The Eighteenth Day

There was a palpable tension in the air in Porterville that day, when the stagecoach pulled up outside of the Porterville Hotel. Nearly everyone in town, it seemed, had heard that Sheriff Trevors was expecting his fifteen year old nephew, in the company of a couple of old friends. They’d been due in yesterday evening, but the stage hadn’t arrived. 

These things happened. There were delays on the road all the time, usually due to quite innocent causes, ranging from weather to broken axles to any number of things. Sometimes, though, the reasons weren’t quite so innocent. And Lom Trevors, who’d long ago been on the other side of the law, well, he was quick to imagine the worst. Because once upon a time, he just might have been a cause of the worst, himself.

Miss Prudence Porter, now the rising star of Porterville’s banking community, and Deputy Sheriff Harker Wilkins had been trying to distract and cajole Lom into a state of relative calm. The two of them sat on opposite sides of the room in the sheriff’s office, while Lom paced back and forth between them.

“Look, Lom, I know I’m only a woman, but . . .” Prudence’s refrain, from when she first stepped in and took her father’s place at the Porterville Bank, had long ago turned into a standing joke. In fact, she’d proven herself so adept at the work that her father had happily retired, leaving her permanently in charge. She shook her head, and her hair ribbons danced, while her dark eyes sparkled.

Usually, Lom would rise to the bait, and remind her that her financial acuity had been demonstrated again and again, even if she’d perhaps made a bit of a mistake hiring that Mister Smith and that Mister Jones to help her out, early on. But since that Mister Smith and that Mister Jones were involved in the current situation, as well, somehow he just didn’t feel all that playful about anything that referenced them.

Harker, on the other hand, took a more direct approach. “Maybe they weren’t the best at bank security, but surely Smith and Jones can handle themselves.”

But Lom continued to pace back and forth, as Prudence shot a worried look over his head at Wilkins.

“That’s partly what I’m worried about,” said the sheriff, mysteriously.

Just then, there was a commotion on the street. Lom rushed to the window, followed by his two friends, and much to his relief, he saw a stagecoach pulling up in front of the Porterville Hotel, only eighteen hours behind schedule.

Forgetting his dignity, Trevors hurried out to greet the arriving stage. Prudence Porter pulled her crocheted shawl close around her shoulders and followed him, as did Deputy Wilkins, holding quite literally onto his hat against the sudden wind that had sprung up along Main Street.

A moment later, a young man, still in his mid-teens, had exited the stagecoach. “Hey, Uncle Lom!” he called out. “We had the best day ever! It was just like in a Deadwood Dick story!”

Several women exited the stage, the elder one accompanied by her husband, and then came the familiar figures of Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones, better known to Lom and to themselves as Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry.

They did not look happy. The Kid’s blue eyes were not lit up with joy, nor was Heyes’ dimpled smile anywhere in evidence.

In fact, looking at them, all Lom could think to say was, “All right, Jimmy. Just what exactly did you do?”

His nephew’s face fell. “Nothing, Uncle Lom. Just had the biggest adventure of my life, thanks to Mister Smith and Mister Jones, here.”

In fact, the young man looked so crestfallen that Lom immediately regretted his response. Jimmy had shot up at least six or seven inches since Lom had last seen him, and he was still gawky and awkward with it. The sheriff’s protective instincts came to the fore. Glaring at the pair of ex-outlaws who stood several paces behind his nephew, he said, “Perhaps once I’ve got young Jimmy settled at home, the two of you would have a word with me about what’s happened over the past few days.”

The former outlaws nodded their agreement. “We’ll wait for you in the saloon, Lom. Need a drink or two after that ride.”

Harker Wilkins turned back towards the sheriff’s office, but Miss Porter continued onwards, at his side. She shot Kid Curry a glance as if to say, “You had your chance, Mister Jones, and you didn’t take it.” In fact, Prudence Porter was now Lom Trevors’ sweetheart, something that was to earn him a whole new level of respect and awe in his nephew’s eyes.

Soon, Jimmy was settled in to Lom’s snug living room, with a steaming mug of hot cocoa and some of Miss Porter’s sugar cookies. “Oh, Uncle Lom, your friends are the best!”

JIMMY’S VERSION

I was bored that first day. Stagecoaches are pretty small, actually, so it was crowded. There were two ladies and a man, besides Mister Smith and Mister Jones and me – we sat facing them, and I was a little squished in the middle. The older lady and her husband talked about the grandchildren they’d just visited and how they hoped that the husband’s assistant hadn’t made any big mistakes managing his shop while they were away. The other lady knitted, which was kind of interesting to watch, for awhile, but then it was all the same. She was pretty, so that was nice, anyway.

That night, we all stayed at this inn at a town on the other side of this mountain range. They told me what it was called, but I can’t remember. Anyway, the hotel didn’t have a room with two or three beds, so they had to share and I got stuck with something called a trundle bed that got pulled out from underneath. I felt like a little kid, but, oh well. One of ‘em snores, but I’m not sure which one. You know, it’s pretty odd they’re named Smith and Jones, isn’t it? I mean, yeah, those are both common names, but, I dunno. Together? Odd.

When we got there, Jones made a big point out of the fact that he’d sat with me last night while Smith was playing poker, and that it was his turn to go to the saloon. He disappeared for a couple of hours, and came back in a more cheerful mood than he’d been after riding in that crowded stagecoach all day.

I don’t like Joshua Smith quite as much as Thaddeus Jones – he’s nice and all, but he made it clear he was tired and he just wanted to read some boring book that didn’t have any illustrations, and he wasn’t very interested in _Kid Curry & Hannibal Heyes and the Haunted Mine_. The folks at the hotel in Lakeville let me keep it. (The lady at the reception desk called it “trash” but she clearly doesn’t understand great literature.) Especially not after I read him the description of Kid Curry in all his golden glory, and his sidekick Heyes, with the scar down one side of his face. He was pretty interested in Heyes’s sweetheart down in Mexico, though. He said a man could sure do worse than that. 

I think Thaddeus Jones must have really liked the book when I told him parts of it the other day, though, because he said Heyes’ name, clear as a bell, in the middle of the night, not just once, but twice. I think Joshua Smith must be a little bit impatient, because I’m pretty sure I heard him kick Mister Jones right after the second time.

The next morning, the stage was leaving early, to go up into the mountains. That’s when things really got exciting. First of all, the roads were pretty scary. You could look right out the window and into the gorge, when we were going up into the mountain pass. That stagecoach driver was really a good driver, that’s for sure. We stopped midday at a way station in a valley in between the two ranges to get some lunch and change teams of horses. There was a nice elderly couple that kept it, and the man kept confiding in our driver, and then they called over Mister Smith and Mister Jones. Both of them wore guns, while the other man didn’t, and of course neither of the ladies, so maybe that’s why. Anyway, they kept talking to themselves and the driver looked pretty worried. The station keeper’s wife tried to cover it up, I guess, by chatting with the other ladies and the husband and me about the weather and the blueberry pies she’d just baked. (We got some for dessert, by the way. Really good!)

So we started off again, only Mister Jones rode up top with the driver this time. I guess he’s pretty brave. We got through another mountain pass and into a valley at the other side, and that’s when it happened. A band of outlaws held us up!

They were pretty mean-looking, the leader especially. There were six or seven of them, each one uglier than the next. They all had rifles and stuff, and they were taking aim at us – I could see out the stagecoach window. But then there was a noise from the top of the coach, and quick as lightning, not one, but two, then three outlaws fell off their horses.

I thought they might be dead, but it turned out every single one of them got shot in the arm or shoulder. Then Mister Smith pushed past me and jumped out of the coach, with his gun drawn. I could have sworn I heard him say, “Del, just remember, I’m not such a good aim as the Kid. I might go for your shoulder, but there’s no guarantee I won’t miss by a bit, maybe not in the direction you’d like.”

So I guess he did like the book, after all, if he was pretending that he and his friend were Heyes and the Kid. Which I guess is what he was doing, unless it was the Sundance Kid or some other Kid he was thinking of. Me and my friends back home sometimes pretend to be the James boys, or the Earps and Doc Holliday, so I get that, only except Mister Smith and Mister Jones are pretty old – they’ve got to be thirty or something like that. Still, maybe it helped him to feel brave. They both were so heroic!

Anyway, the outlaws got their wounded friends back on their horses and they rode away, just like that. But meanwhile they’d shot out one of the axles on the coach, so the driver had to find a way to fix it, which Mister Smith and Mister Jones helped him with. They did a temporary fix, but of course as soon as we got to the next settlement, they had to get it repaired properly, and instead of making it to Porterville, we had to stay overnight.

Anyway, we got off early the next day, and the axle was fixed just fine, and here we are. And Mister Jones and Mister Smith are just . . . like, the very best! Almost like real lawmen, themselves. Or outlaws. In any case, you have the greatest friends, Uncle Lom!

HEYES AND CURRY’S VERSION

Later that evening, Lom stopped by the saloon – after having seen Miss Porter safely home, of course. He found Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry sitting at a table in the corner. Curry was half-heartedly flirting with a saloon gal, and Heyes was just staring off into space.

That could be a good thing, or it could be a bad thing, Lom thought. Depending on which end of a Hannibal Heyes plan you ended up on.

But when he joined them, Heyes quickly shook himself out of his reverie. “So . . . your nephew,” he said.

“Seems to admire the two of you quite a bit after these past few days.”

“Did he tell you about the part where he told the stagecoach robbers that we were Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry?”

Lom’s eyes widened. “No, he left that out.”

“Of course, the folks who were sticking us up were Del Barton’s gang, so they knew that already, as soon as they got a look at us. I was worried that was gonna ruin things for the Kid and me with the driver and those passengers. Visions of $20,000 rewards and all that. But I guess as soon as the Kid winged three of the bandits, which knocked ‘em off their horses, and foiled the robbery . . . well, after that the passengers and driver were pretty much on our side, even if we’d been way worse than what we are.”

“Do you think any of them realized you really were Heyes and Curry?” He spoke quietly to Heyes, but Curry’s ears pricked up in the way that only happens when a person knows they’re being talked about.

Kid Curry turned his attention away from the young lady, and towards his two friends. He waited a moment, until she left to take someone else’s order for drinks, then spoke softly enough that only they could hear. “Jimmy was pretty insistent that he’d only been making up a story. After all, Joshua Smith doesn’t have a big scar down the side of his face, so he couldn’t possibly be Hannibal Heyes. He showed them the dime novel and all. You should see the illustration on the cover!”

Heyes turned to where there was a big gilt-edged mirror hanging on the wall, and looked complacently at his relatively unscarred face. “Sometimes truth is better than fiction, eh Kid?”

**Author's Note:**

> A number of readers at the ASJ Advent Calendar very kindly wanted to know what happened after "The Fifteenth Day." After publicly declaring that I had no intention of continuing the series, I suddenly knew what happened next, and happened to have a very long train ride which gave me plenty of time with my laptop. For my next act, I'm tempted to recreate excerpts from the dime novel _Kid Curry & Hannibal Heyes and the Haunted Mine_. We'll see . . . 
> 
> The name “Prudence” and the Lom/Miss Porter romance refer specifically to the story “Meanwhile, Back in Porterville” by Deborah Menikoff, which appeared in the zine _Just You, Me, and the Governor_ #13 back in the 1990s – a tribute to my old ASJ Snarkathon partner.


End file.
